Why your Key Messaging is vital

Are your messages reaching your intended audience?

‍In my previous blog, I discussed why creating an ideal customer profile ensures you are focused on the customers most likely to buy. In this blog, I’m going to talk about why creating a Key Messaging Document (KMD) should be next on your list:

• It distills the reasons that compel your customers to buy - and what makes you unique.

• It ensures consistent messaging across your organization, with everyone singing from the same hymn sheet. Consistency of messaging is critical, as it's only after a customer has heard your message several times that they will remember it.

• It allows marketing to scale faster with fewer people, as you don't reinvent the wheel for each campaign, event, or piece of content.

• It makes sales more productive (see my blog post on creating Sales Plays).

Your key messaging should be used as a baseline to create all customer-facing content, such as emails, event messaging, explainer videos, eBooks, and press releases. By putting this information in one place, you create a straightforward reference guide that accelerates and simplifies content creation, onboards anyone quickly, and keeps your messaging consistent.

In this blog, I'll walk you through creating a key messaging document that helps you communicate your messages clearly and concisely and scale your sales and marketing efforts more quickly without adding more people to the team.

How to craft a key messaging document

A Key Messaging Document should be structured and organized in a logical and easy-to-read manner, including the headings below. It should start with an introduction that provides an overview of your brand or organization, followed by sections that outline your target audience, unique selling point, and critical messages.

 Your Key Messaging Document should contain the following:

• The name of your product or solution this document applies to

• Your core target audience (or Ideal Customer Profile)

This contains a description of the organizations most likely to buy your product (for more information, read my blog post about defining your ideal customer profile). Understanding your audience helps you tailor your messages to resonate with your customers and address their unique challenges.

• Customer pains and their impact

This should describe the issues that resonate with prospects who don't currently have your solution, along with their impact (this can also be expressed as 'Why change?' and 'Why change now?').

An example pain might be 'A lack of accurate sales forecasting means that we are scrambling at the end of the quarter to pull business from other customers forward'.

An example impact is 'the result of this is that it makes the end of quarter unnecessarily stressful as well as reduced long-term revenue as a result of offering other customers greater discounts to encourage them to bring forward their purchasing decisions'.

•  Detail on personas you are targeting

This describes which people are directly or indirectly affected by the pains above - and why.

An example is 'The CRO is adversely affected as he needs to deliver reliable forecasts to the rest of the board. The CEO is affected as he needs to deliver accurate guidance to shareholders. The wider sales team is affected as there is pressure on them to bring in revenue sooner by offering greater discounts, which reduces the perceived value of the solution and their commission'.

In other words, you would want to target the CRO, the CEO, sales managers, and (potentially) salespeople - knowing the relevant pains you can resolve for each person you are talking to.

• Features/Advantages/Benefits

With your target audience in mind, look at (from the customers' perspective) the issue they are trying to resolve, what features you offer, the advantages they bring, and the ultimate benefits the advantages bring about (a great, paraphrased, example I was given at the beginning of my career was: 'Feature: Added enzymes in washing powder; Advantage: Removes stains from your clothes; Benefit: You're always dressed to kill'.

Your key messages should be concise, memorable, and focused on the benefits your customers will receive. Avoid using jargon or technical language that may confuse or alienate your audience. Instead, use clear language that everyone can understand.

• Your elevator pitch

Your elevator pitch should consist of one or two sentences succinctly describing how customers benefit from and why they buy your product or solution. It should explain exactly what your organization does in 60 seconds or less in easy-to-understand, jargon-free language.

An example might be, 'We make sales forecasting more accurate by looking at customer motivation signals that are difficult to monitor manually but combined indicate whether a customer is likely to buy. This allows more accurate sales forecasting while allowing salespeople to focus on the business likely to close that quarter.

• A short description of your offering

The description of your offering expands on this, answering in more detail, 'How does this product/solution deliver value to your customers?' (and should also answer the 'Why buy from us?' question), usually in around two hundred and fifty words. The 'Why buy from us?' should relate to why customers in your Ideal Customer Profile can benefit more from your solution than the alternatives.

• Outcomes and proof-points

  Include summaries of case studies, analyst reports, and independent analysis of the outcomes, including ROI (it helps to include links to the full versions of these documents).

• Competitors

Who is your competition? Which customers are they aiming at? What are their Strengths and Weaknesses? When do they win, and when do they lose? Why should customers choose you over each specific competitor?

• Industry topics

Hot topics are industry-relevant topics that are top-of-mind within your ideal customer profile's sector and can help guide your social media and PR efforts. These topics are very relevant to your ideal customers at this point in time and that you can take a stance on.

• Search Engine Optimisation

I have historically considered SEO a part of this process. However, the fact that the search terms you want to optimize for can change each month makes me feel that handling this in a separate document is better.

Conclusion

You're effectively pushing water uphill without compelling reasons for your customers to buy. With clear and persuasive messaging, your audience understands what sets you apart, resulting in increased opportunities and revenue.

By identifying your target audience and your unique selling proposition and creating key messages that resonate, you can ensure that your message is clear, concise, and compelling – while making your life easier.

Remember that these should be considered living documents, updated regularly to reflect shifts in your marketplace and the evolution of your go-to-market strategy. Avoid reinventing the wheel just because you're bored of your own messaging!

If you would like any advice on this topic, you can set up a free advisory session with us.